AS101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 15: Terrestrial Planet, Radioactive Decay, Orbital Period
Document Summary
All the terrestrial planets are rocky, cratered, and differentiated. Recall that terrestrial planet formation begins with condensation and accretion. Each planet experience the next three steps to a different degree: differentiation, heavy bombardment, slow surface evolution. The earth will be our planet of reference. In order to differentiate, the earth had to be heated by. Heat of formation (mechanical energy of accreted planetsimals thermal energy) Materials became separated into layers by density. Crust: low density rock, 10-60km deep extremely thin. Mantle denser solid rock that behaves like a slow. Different types of waves from earthquakes can be detected at different locations of the planet. Detecting p waves but not s waves indicated a liquid core. Multiple measurements of seismic waves from an earthquake can measure the size of the liquid one. Energy is transported outward from the core to space in 3 ways. Core temp 6000k; empty space 3k. Hot material rises and cool material falls in convection cells.
